10 
BERLIN. 
without compensation stands in the way of its disappearance in Berlin. The 
practice of sleeping in formerly prevailed here, but it has been abolished, to the 
satisfaction of both employers and workpeople. 
Of other workpeople, bakers in private employment earn as a rule 27s., 
with 3s. supplied in kind, while bakers in co-operative concerns earn 35s. 
There are many small button factories, for the most part employing ten or a 
dozen workpeople. Workers in horn and mother-of-pearl earn 32s. per week, 
in composition, 26s., and in metal (mostly girls), 18s. 
Wages in the building trades have steadily increased of late years, until in 
most branches the rates now prevailing are the highest in Germany. All 
the rates are hourly and are regulated by agreements. The agreement of the 
hod carriers introduces the reciprocal principle, by requiring minimum work 
in return for minimum wages ; 26 bricks must be carried at a time to cellar, 
ground floor, and first story, 24 to the second and third stories, and 22 to the 
fourth and higher stories. It is possible to follow the course of bricklayers’ and 
carpenters’ wages for a series of years. In 1879 the usual rate of pay in each 
case was from 4d. to 4^7. per hour. According to the central unions of these 
trades later rates have been as follows, the rates since 1899 being fixed by 
agreements :— 
Bricklayers. 
1885 
1890 
1895 
1899 
1900 
1901 
1902 
1903 
1904 
1905 
1906 
72d. 
7-5 d, 
7-8(7. 
7- 8d. 
8- ld. 
8-4d. 
8- 7(7. 
9- 0(7. 
Carpenters. 
5- 1 d. 
6*0 d. 
63d. 
6- 3(7. 
7- 8(7. 
7-8(7. 
7- 8(7. 
84(7. 
84(7. 
8- 7(7. 
9- 0(7. 
A comparison of these rates suggests that the higher price of labour is an 
equal factor with the higher price of land in causing the increase in rents 
which has occurred during recent years. Side by side with this increase in the 
rate of wages there has been a decrease in the number of hours. Prior to 1870 
the rule was eleven hours daily, but by 1872 the ten-hours day had been 
introduced ; the years 1896 to 1899 saw the struggle for a nine-hours day, 
embodied in the wages agreement of the latter year ; the masons are now 
agitating for a day of eight hours. 
A large number of home industries afford occupation for a host of work 
people of both sexes in Berlin and neighbourhood. The principal industries 
which are in part or altogether carried on in the homes of the workers are various 
branches of the clothing industry, the manufacture of linen underwear, of hats 
caps, ties, feathers, and flowers, the tobacco, boot and shoe, leather and 
paper goods industries, the manufacture of baskets and sticks, and the cigar and 
cigarette industry. It is estimated that the home workers of all classes kreativ 
exceed 100,000. 
In 1905 the Berlin Chamber of Commerce instituted an investigation into 
the extent, character, and conditions of these home industries, as a result of 
which it was found that female workers—to a large extent married—greatly 
predominate, further, that the home work is to a very great degree unskilled 
and that it is a means of livelihood to a large number of physically deteriorated 
workers who are unsuited to factory employment. 
The two most striking peculiarities of the clothing trade are that it is 
seasonal, as a consequence of which earnings are very irregular, and that it is 
overwhelmingly in the hands of middlemen. The latter word ' is the obvious 
rendering,, of the German term " Zwischenmeister,” for though the word 
“ sweater ” is quite familiar to persons engaged in this trade there is a reluctance 
to allow that any analogy exists between the Berlin “ middleman ” and the 
" sweater ” of the London East End. It is only rarely that clothing manufac 
turers have workshops of their own, and where they exist it is for the^ making of 
high-class goods of a special kind. Virtually the whole trade is in the hands of 
the middlemen, with whom their employers make contracts at the beginning of